Neuro X is the title and theme for the May 1 symposium hosted by Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. The event kicks off with a continental breakfast at 8 a.m. in the Owens Auditorium, between CRB I and CRB II on the Johns Hopkins University medical campus. Talks begin at 9 a.m. Posters featuring multidisciplinary research from across many Hopkins divisions and departments will be on display from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

One of this year’s speakers is Martin G. Pomper, MD, PhD.

Martin Pomper, MD, PhD

Martin Pomper is the William R. Brody Professor of Radiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with a joint appointment in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering. He received his undergraduate, graduate (organic chemistry) and medical degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His postgraduate medical training was at Johns Hopkins and included an internship (Osler Medical Service), residencies (diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine) and fellowship (neuroradiology). He is board-certified in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine. He has been on the Radiology faculty at Johns Hopkins since 1996. He is currently the director of the Johns Hopkins Small Animal Imaging Resource and associate director of the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center, both funded by the National Cancer Institute to support molecular imaging research.

Dr. Pomper is director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Translational Molecular Imaging. He is co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and the Positron Emission Tomography Center. His interests are in the development of new radiopharmaceuticals, optical probes and techniques for molecular imaging of cancer and central nervous system disease. His research group consists of chemists, physicists, molecular biologists and clinicians working together toward clinical molecular imaging. He is Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Imaging and a past President of the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence. He has numerous patents related to medical imaging, many of which have been licensed, as well as several imaging agents in clinical trials.

Additional speakers will be profiled in the next few weeks. To register your poster and for more details visit http://inbt.jhu.edu/news/symposium/

For all press inquiries regarding INBT, its faculty and programs, contact Mary Spiro, mspiro@jhu.edu or 410-516-4802.

Happy TRAILs to you: PEGylation of proteins through complementary interactions between a His-tag and a Ni2+ complex of nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA, see picture), a well-established practice in protein research, was used to improve the half-life of therapeutic proteins in the blood following systemic administration in vivo. Animal models show that this site-specific modification improves the efficacy of modified TRAIL proteins.

Proteins are responsible for pretty much everything in the human body. When there is a problem with the proteins, it usually leads to disease.

Protein therapy shows enormous potential for treating disease. But sometimes the proteins in a therapeutic treatment break down or are metabolized before they ever reach their target destination.

In a recent paper published in Angewandte Chemie, researchers from the laboratories of Martin Pomper (radiology oncology) and Seulki Lee (radiology, Center for Nanomedicine) at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and developed a simple method to validate protein drugs in animal models, said Lee. An illustration related to the paper appeared on the cover of the journal.

“We show that we can extend the half-life, that is, the amount of time the drug stays in the blood, while maintaining the activity of the model protein drug, TRAIL,” said one of the lead authors Maggie Swierczewska. “This has great implications for drug screening and validation methods, especially for the growing protein drug market.”

According to the paper, by attaching a molecule of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to certain sites on the TRAIL protein drugs through an already well known method, the half-life of the drug could be extended without affecting its beneficial activity.

Innovative ways of imaging wound healing can reveal much about blood vessel remodeling and blood flow following an injury. Researchers in the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a method for using laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) to elucidate the changes that occur in the microvasculature over time as a wound heals. Researchers in the laboratory of Arvind P. Pathak have visualized the wound healing process in a mouse ear model by capturing images of angiogenesis—or the development of new blood vessels—over a 12-day period.

“LSCI is a powerful tool for observing the architecture and remodeling of microvasculature as well as the hemodynamic changes (blood flow) during angiogenesis,” said Pathak, an assistant professor of radiology and oncology and principal investigator on the study. “Being able to watch this process occur in a living animal helps us better understand the role of the vasculature during various phases of the wound healing process.”

Stunning images obtained from their experiments were featured on the cover of the March issue of the journal Angiogenesis. The LSCI images shown on the cover from left to right are sequential images of the in vivo blood flow changes that occur on days 0, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 12 after wound creation. The “hotter” colors indicate higher blood flow. The background image is a grayscale LSCI image from an uninjured mouse ear.

Wound healing typically proceeds in three phases, Pathak explained: inflammation (which initiates the immune response and recruits immune cells and molecules to the injury), proliferation (the formation of new blood vessels and epithelium) and remodeling (which removes the vascular scar created during blood vessel formation). LSCI is ideal for imaging the progression of each phase because it can monitor in vivo changes in microvascular architecture and hemodynamics at the same time, he said.

LSCI images are created when tissue illuminated by a laser is photographed through a small aperture, explained Pathak. “The resulting images exhibit a random interference pattern, also called a ‘speckle’ pattern. In blood vessels, this speckle pattern shifts due to the orderly motion of red blood cells, causing a blur over the exposure time of the camera. The degree of blurring in the LSCI image is proportional to the velocity of blood in the vessels and constitutes the biophysical basis of LSCI. Therefore, LSCI can distinguish blood vessels in tissue without any fluorescent dye or contrast agent.”

In this way, Pathak added, LSCI is capable of “wide area mapping” of the tissue, allowing us to measure not only the length and perfusion of blood vessels but their tortuosity (twistiness) and the overall flow of blood to the wound site as healing progresses.

In addition to angiogenesis research, the imaging method has practical applications in drug testing, Pathak said. “Using LSCI alongside a drug study would provide better insight into the efficacy of drug delivery and therapeutic outcome,” he said.

The lead author of the paper was Abhishek Rege, a graduate student in biomedical engineering co-mentored by Pathak and Nitish V. Thakor, professor of biomedical engineering in whose neuroengineering laboratory LSCI was developed. Kevin Rhie, a research technician in Pathak’s laboratory was the other author on this study.

This work was supported jointly by a Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBiotechnology (INBT) Junior Faculty Pilot Award to Pathak, and grants from the National Institute of Aging and the Department of Health and Human Services to Thakor.

The results of common and routine blood tests are not affected by up to 40 minutes of travel on hobby-sized drones, a recent proof-of-concept study at Johns Hopkins demonstrated, promising news for the millions of people cared for in rural and economically impoverished areas that lack passable roads. In developing nations, most tests on blood […]